House Cleaning Question

[kherrmann3]

How often do you guys vacuum your house/apartment/bunny room? I was wondering this because it seems that I have to vacuum my bedroom (with one bunny) about twice a week. It's mostly his litter that gets all over the floor. There are little poops here are there, but I normally pick them up with a dust pan. As for the loose hair, that is yet another reason why I vacuum so often.

Another question, what do you use to pick up? Do all of you vacuum, or do you use other ways of cleaning? I remember Swiffer had those little "carpet flick" things for awhile, and I was wondering if that would work for the litter (pine shavings, we've been over this, please don't yell).

My room is covered in that really low, looped carpeting. It is not comfortable to lay on at all, but it doesn't allow dirt to fall into it. It cleans up very nicely. There is a rug on Will's side of the bed where Toby's litter box is. He kicks shavings out of the box onto this rug, and since it is so big, I normally wind up vacuuming it instead of shaking it off outside. It cleans up very well with the vacuum, so I'm not worried about that.

Does anyone have something like that carpet flick? Would that work for bunny messes? Obviously it wouldn't work on the hair, but I'm mainly concerned with the shavings and little poos left everywhere.

 

[Luv-bunniz]

CJ is out in my bedroom as much as possible and at least 2 hours daily and I sweep up any long strands of hay and vacuum anything else (litter, stray poops etc) up. Considering the tray is about 6" deep the rats seem to manage to get plenty enough bedding outside the cage, do that gets cleaned up usually twice a day. The floor is mopped if and when CJ goes back into his cage at night aswell. When I had rabbits on carpet I used an outdoor patio wire brush to get the fur our of it, cleaned it up nicely and looked like new after a year or two of use!

 

[mouse_chalk]

I have wood laminate floors, which is like a bowling alley for poos! I sweep once a day usually, sometimes twice if I can be bothered. It gets SO messy......

This is me:

:sweep

I've often wondered if hoovering would be easier but I don't know of a vacuum that wouldn't get clogged up with the hay etc :?

 

[Flashy]

The house is hoovering sometimes twice a day, my room is hoovered when I can be bothered or when someone does it without me knowing. That used to be daily but at the moment is maybe every three days. I sweep most days those and that is nearly as effective as hoovering.

 

[kherrmann3]

The hay does clog up the vacuum if you're not careful! I normally go through the room and hand pick-up as much of the stray hay as I possible can. It's weird when the vacuum gets clogged, you bang the little hose on something to loosen it, and a chunk of fur and hay comes out (about the size of a hamster). It's scared people who were outside when I've done it before. They thought it was a mouse!

 

[Raspberry82]

I vacuum the whole house including the living room (where the buns cage's are) about 1x a week with our big vacuum which gets up most of the hay from their cages or stray poos.

But sometimes I vacuum out their cages with a little hand held dirt devil 1x a week as well and suck up the stray poos/hay surrounding their cages if it is excessive and bothering me.

I also sweep up the kitchen floor (their main play room) about 2x a week due to regular cleaning and hay/cardboard bits... Via regular mop and broom.

And, if I'm feeling especially ambitious, I just might dust during their shedding seasons with paper towels and cleaner since their fuzz piles up on everything. Usually I don't care too much.

We ONLY use non-toxic biodegradeable cleaner for everything in our home including mopping the floor.. except the bathroom.. so the buns will be safe and our home can look semi clean until the buns mess it up again.. lol.

 

[Raspberry82]

kherrmann3 wrote:

The hay does clog up the vacuum if you're not careful! I normally go through the room and hand pick-up as much of the stray hay as I possible can. It's weird when the vacuum gets clogged, you bang the little hose on something to loosen it, and a chunk of fur and hay comes out (about the size of a hamster). It's scared people who were outside when I've done it before. They thought it was a mouse!

Me too. With my hand heald mini vac the hay clogs it up quick if they are big strands, so I sometimes grab a mini broom and dust pan and go around getting up as much as possible. The mini vac sucks up the tiny hay bits just fine though. Same with the big vac.

 

[pherber12]

Roxy lives in my living room and she only has access to the living room and kitchen which are both tiled so I just sweep up once or twice a day - doesn't take very long...

 

[delusional]

We vac up at least once a day, using a vacuum cleaner. Ours doesn't tend to clog too often, even with longer bits of hay, as long as you make sure it's not too full. And we use the hose part rather than the base.

We had nightmares with hay when we used a vacuum cleaner with bags, but since we went bagless we've had virtually no problems.

 

[slavetoabunny]

I do a really thorough vacuuming with the big vac (bagless) once a week. I remove everything from the pens and move it away from the wall to get behind it. During the week I usually scoop up everything with my hands and sometimes get the hand vac out.

 

[kherrmann3]

Thank you for the responses, everyone!

 

[NZminilops]

I have a small bagless vacuum cleaner for Sakuras room but it only needs vacuuming maybe twice a week. I use the more powerful vacuum and do the entire house every day though as I'm messy and drop crumbs a lot . She's tidier than I am.

 

[fancybutterfly]

Both my boybuns are free range all day. I vaccuum about 3 times a week; Sweep up the larger pieces to save on the vac.

But I am also a NEAT freak!!!!

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Good question! I sweep up the poops every night with a tiny broom and dust pan (best $2 I ever spent). If Phoebe Mae is out, there are always lots of doots to pick up, Skyler leaves about half as many as her and Rory usually only leaves about 10 or less. I make sure hay is off the floor before vacuuming (Paul had to unclog the vacuum once because hay got jammed in it), usually I just let the bunnies eat it off the floor since they loooove our hay. Then I vacuum, 1-2 times a week. The bunnies aren't free range so they don't make that much of a mess on the carpet. The cockatiels are actually worse because they're so feathery and dusty, but I've found the easiest way to cut down on that is by staying on top of changing the paper in the bottom of the cage because when dust and feathers fall on the paper then they flap their wings, everything goes airborne!

Our vacuum unfortunately doesn't work very well and I dream of having a better one. Paul said that someday he'll buy me a Dyson!

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Bonus picture! Tallulah was the poop queen, she did this in about half an hour:

 

[JadeIcing]

I clean the cages 2-3 times a week bedroombunnies one day, other bunnies and other animals a different days. So I am more or less cleaning everyday.(5 cages rabbit cages;2 gp cages;1 pen). Than every other saturday a major clean on all. With a dustpan and broom. Vacume when ever we can.